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Good Neighbor Podcast North Atlanta
Bringing Together Local Businesses & Neighbors of North Atlanta
Good Neighbor Podcast North Atlanta
EP #48: BKS Partners with Hannah O'Donoghue
Ever wonder why the cost to rebuild your home could be significantly higher than its market value? Brace yourselves as we unravel these and many other insurance misconceptions with Hannah O'Donoghue from BKS Partners. Hannah's fascinating career detour from a boutique owner to a personal lines insurance professional at BKS Partners has equipped her with unique insights into the insurance industry. She also demystifies the often misunderstood concept of umbrella coverage, sharing practical advice on how to discuss your coverage needs with a financial advisor.
But it's not all a smooth road; the COVID pandemic has shuffled the deck, posing unprecedented challenges. We unpack the importance of client retention in a sales role - a crucial element in managing memberships during these trying times. Join us, whether you're a seasoned pro or just exploring your interests, there's a wealth of knowledge waiting for you in this episode.
This is the Good Neighbor podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Stacey Risley.
Speaker 2:Hello friends and neighbors, Welcome to episode 48 of North Atlanta's Good Neighbor podcast. Today we have a good neighbor, Hannah O'Donohue, with BKS Partners. Hi, Hannah, how are you?
Speaker 3:Good. How are you today?
Speaker 2:I'm doing great. I'm so happy to have you on the show. Well, we're going to go ahead and jump right in. If you will go ahead and tell our listeners about your business, Tell us about BKS Partners.
Speaker 3:Okay, bks Partners is an insurance brokerage firm. We are based out of Tampa but we are a publicly traded company. We do commercial insurance benefits and personal lines insurance. I work on the personal line side. I focus on helping the consumer with their home, their auto collections, umbrella insurance. We focus in the high network space so we can help with carriers like Chubb AIG, pure Cincinnati, travelers, that sort of thing.
Speaker 2:Wonderful. Well, how about your journey? How did you get into this business?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I've always been in the sales and marketing industry. I had boutiques in Buckhead and in Alpharetta where we sold a luxury maternity clothes. I did that for about 12 years. Once I had my son within a year, I knew that the brick and mortar business owner was not necessarily ideal for me at that time in my life. I shifted and I was the director of membership at the Marcus Jewish Community Center of Atlanta in Dunwoody for about five years. Then, about a year and a half ago, I was ready to find another job, more in the for-profit sector, and I felt like insurance was a great move because I was still servicing the customer and still trying to make their life better. But it was just in a different realm.
Speaker 2:I love your journey, hannah. I love that you have had multiple careers, so to speak, because I can relate to that. I have as well. I love that you found something that's the right fit for you, and I didn't know that you had boutiques and that you work at the Marcus Community Center. That's awesome. Here in Dunwoody, that's a huge. Everyone knows where that is Exactly. Bring a lot of experience to the table from different areas. That's awesome. Tell me, are there any myths or misconceptions about your industry that you might want to clear up with our listeners today?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I had an idea of a few things that we kind of are like common questions. We often hear oh, perfect, so oftentimes when someone's buying a home they will say well, the home is worth $500,000, so I need to insure my home for $500,000. But oftentimes when you're buying a house your market price is very different than what the actual replacement costs of the house, because the market changes all the time. So you might buy a house for $500,000 a year ago or a few years ago and it's now worth $750,000. But also, when we're looking at the market cost is covering the home and the land and your zip code versus the replacement cost of your home is if your home was completely totaled, how much would it cost to rebuild that home exactly how it was?
Speaker 3:And you think in your head oh yeah, $500,000 should be fine. But then people forget. Especially post COVID, the cost of labor has increased. The cost of goods like lumber has dramatically increased in price, so the cost to rebuild your house has really increased. Just to give you an example we insure homes all the time in Dunwoody that they could have been purchased at around maybe $350,000. They may be worth around $600,000 now and we could be insuring it for $700,000, because it's what is the cost to actually recreate that home from the ground up exactly how it was.
Speaker 2:Pratt is really good advice. Actually Misconception and just really good advice, because I think that's probably the case with a lot of people, a lot of homeowners. You ensure it for when you purchased it and then you may be in the house for 20 years and never increase that value and if something does happen to your home, then you could be on the hook for a lot more expense than you're thinking. Were there others?
Speaker 3:You said a place, yeah. So another thing is people aren't. There's something called umbrella coverage, which a lot of people, some people have, some people don't have. But oftentimes we say, well, do you know what your umbrella is for? And they say, no, not really. My advisor just told me I needed to have it.
Speaker 3:So umbrella liability is kind of the catch up or backup plan to your home and your auto coverage. So, for example, if you get in a car wreck and you affect, you're at fault and it causes property damage and injuries to like maybe 10 other cars, oftentimes your auto limits can get exhausted, so that umbrella is there as the backup plan. So maybe you have a $1 million umbrella. Well, now you have, for example, $1.5 million in liability versus just the $500,000 that's in your auto. Or the flip side say you entertain at your home a lot and I remember there was a news story a couple years ago that, like you have, maybe you have that higher porch, like on your second level, and a bunch of people fall through the porch. Well, now you're dealing with a bunch of injuries and there's a high possibility someone might sue you to cover the cost of their injuries.
Speaker 3:So that umbrella policy is there to protect your overall liability and give you that extra protection. And we often say this is a great place where you can speak with your financial advisor or wealth advisor to basically understand what is your net worth or your net assets, like if you were. Does that all fit into a million dollars, or is your net worth closer to $2 million or $5 million when you think about all your investments outside your 401k, all your properties, all your cars, because in the end of the day, if someone sues you, they can go after all your assets. So with Personal Alliance Insurance, we're trying to give you enough protection so that you never have to go out of pocket in case of a catastrophe or you get sued for something that happened at your home or while driving. So we always suggest for people to kind of match that umbrella limit with their personal net worth.
Speaker 2:That makes a lot of sense when it's explained that way.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and then I was going to mention just one other thing with Georgia, because we're not and when I say Georgia I'm usually thinking like North Georgia, metropolitan, atlanta people don't always think about flood insurance because we're not next to a big body of water or in a coastal neighborhood. But flood insurance is protecting your home from any surface water coming in. So with Georgia we get a lot of hurricanes not hurricanes, I'm sorry tornadoes, heavy rains. So you often can get that heavy rain. The water kind of sits on your lawn and then it seeps through the front door into your basement or maybe a tree falls into the pool and then that water starts going into your home. So we oftentimes like to kind of put that option out to our clients that even though you like oftentimes don't live in a flood zone where it's required to have flood insurance, it's always worth considering because it's just, it's another like good backup for that. What if?
Speaker 2:kind of situation. I actually have had a similar experience to that when I lived in Peachtree, georgia. We had a tree that came down, damaged the home and they asked us if there were, if we had, flood insurance. We did not. We did not. And more importantly, the way it did hit the home. It was covered under the insurance we had. But when they asked me if we had flood insurance, I was like why would we have flood insurance? I live in Georgia.
Speaker 3:Right right, georgia, it's not. Some, and especially when you're not, when you're in an ex-flood zone or a zone that's not considered a quote unquote flood zone, oftentimes flood insurance, even with a private flood company, can be super affordable. We're talking like five to $700 for the year for a general, like NFIP type of policy that it's covering like 250,000 dollars of your building or your home and then like 100,000 in contents, so that could still, you know, more or less cover like maybe half of your home or a third of your home for, in case, if you had like a flood issue and to think just $600 for the entire year for that coverage, it's not, it's not that big of an expense. So we always like to kind of put that out to our clients.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was. I have to say I was absolutely shocked at how much damage the water did to our home. The water itself, you know, it wasn't so much. I mean we had the whole roof came in, we had a tree in our sun room, we had, but it was the water, it wasn't that did the most cost. I mean, most of the cost of the damage was, you know, from water damage. So thank you for sharing that. And well, so let's shift gears again, if you are okay with that, and from work and tell us what you're doing, hannah, for fun, when you're not working.
Speaker 3:Okay, I am big into CrossFit. I've probably been doing that for about 15 years, and then I also like distance running. I have a training group in Dunwoody, so we're called the Dunwoody Galway Group, and we do interval training, so the run, walk, run method, and we usually have about 30 to 40 runners each season, from paces of like a 16 minute mile all the way up to like a seven and a half eight minute mile. So it's a big, big range and so I do that, meet with that group once a week and I run that and create all the runs and the maps and the gatherings and so that's kind of like a fun side gig and especially like we even ran through COVID, but it's been a great source of like.
Speaker 3:It's kind of like another support team for you, you know, whether it's emotionally, but also even like in terms of networking. So I've gotten a couple clients through the group or, you know, some job coaching lessons, even when I'm run with these different friends.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's a fellowship of you know, like-minded people enjoying the same types of activities. I love that, and you actually are. So you are organized, you are.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I'm the program director for our Dunwoody group and we try. I would say about half of our runners are Dunwoody based, but then we're getting people all the way from, like Marietta, kenesaw, johns Creek. So we tried, we kind of put ourselves out there. More, I guess, is like a North Atlanta group, right, we try to. Every single weekend we're going to like a different part of the city but still trying to keep the drive at around, you know, 15, 20 minutes for most of our runners. So we may do something in Roswell one weekend and then in Dunwoody and then in Brookhaven. So we kind of like to hop around and it's a way of keeping it exciting while you're training. And we train up to the half marathon distance with our group.
Speaker 2:I love that and I love that you encompass. You know you know what, you know how pro Dunwoody I am. I love it. But I love that you also encompass, you know, people from other communities to join in that. So that's. That is wonderful and perfect for the Good Neighbor podcast North Atlanta that you have people from all over North Atlanta as a part of that group.
Speaker 2:Well, shifting gears again when you're, you know, from fun to a little bit something more serious. But is there a life, hardship or challenge that you have faced that you can now say, for having been through that experience and come out on the other side, that you're better for that today?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean I worked at, I was at the Marcus Jewish Community Center or the MJCCA during all of COVID and being the director of membership. We were extremely cognizant of, you know, the hardships and how people kind of felt being in person. And so as soon as we opened our doors we were definitely allowing people to be at the JCC. You know, initially is with masks, but we had a lot of rules and that was kind of rough for some of our members and we had to often coach people you know, whether it was thinking about social distancing or having to wear your mask, or what activities we were allowing and what we were not allowing, and and sign up systems. Those were definitely challenging to kind of communicate to the members.
Speaker 3:And I even remember having a sit down with a member that they were kind of threatening to leave or quit the JCC and part of it was, you know, they really just wanted to play sports with their kid, like play basketball in the gym, and we had not enough times to like cater to them using the gym on their own because we were practicing social distancing. So you know, I kind of I listened, I made sure I was extremely empathetic and I I, you know, said I agree with you. I see where you're coming from, but at the end of the day we want to keep everybody safe, but we also want you to find value in your membership. So they ended up sticking around and they stayed members. But it was definitely it was probably a 30 minute to hour long conversation just hearing out all their complaints and trying to figure out a way to maintain their relationship and their friendship there at the JCC.
Speaker 2:Yeah and well, and that I know from personal experience how difficult that can be when, especially through something like rules of COVID, there are lots of varying, differing opinions about just even the effectiveness of the mask, and in your role there, that would be extremely challenging to navigate through that and to appease everyone, because you can't. I mean you know, as we all do, you cannot ever make everyone happy. It's impossible. But especially when safety is a concern and you have to adhere to certain guidelines and rules and nobody really likes to be told what they can and can't do as a doll and I think we all had to.
Speaker 2:I mean, we all had to make concessions of the do things that we didn't necessarily want to do, but what needed to do for the greater good of all. But I don't envy your position of having to help people through that. But I think it says a lot to you and your people skills that you were able to resolve that conflict and, I'm sure, quite a few more.
Speaker 3:And I think, just being in a sales role whether it was having a retail shop or being director of membership or selling insurance at the end of the day I want to make sure my client has a quality product, because if they have agreed to buying that product but then they aren't finding value and they're not happy with it, they're likely to leave. And if I can't maintain that retention of that client then the end of the day I've wasted my time and I've wasted the client's time. So that's kind of big picture. You know you're always looking for new business anywhere you go if you're in a sales job, but at the same time that retention piece is still very important, absolutely.
Speaker 2:I could not agree more. And because long term clients too are just their most loyal, and I think a lot of people in the sales industry regardless of the well in the sales field, regardless of the industry, I should say rather it just kind of forget that piece. They're always just looking for that next new client, the next new sale, and really there's the long term retention of your customers over time. That really builds your family, so to speak. So I applaud that. So we're kind of about to wrap up, hannah. This has gone by so quickly, but if there's anything else that you would like our listeners to know about your business, we want to change the thing final with us. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Ah for sure.
Speaker 3:So I think at the end of the day, we suggest for our clients it's always a good idea to kind of look at your personal insurance portfolio, probably about once every three years at least, to see what has the home value increased? What's going on with the cost of goods and cost of labor? Do we need to revisit that replacement cost? Are we making sure we're covering all of our cars? Do we have new collections, new pieces of jewelry or fine art that we've accumulated in the past couple years but we haven't added them to our collections policy. So making sure you're kind of always doing whether it's an annual or at least just as a client, looking at your overall portfolio every three years, and that's a good idea to say, ok, maybe it's time to look around again, that sort of thing.
Speaker 3:And then, in terms of jewelry, if you're going to ensure it and protect it, making sure that you do appraisals on your high value items, probably about every five years, is a great idea, because that kind of helps with measuring the trends. Whether white gold is in or certain kind of cut of diamonds or that sort of thing, or custom jewelry is very valuable at the time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well and true. Just like your home value changes over time, so do any of your valuable assets, so that's really good advice. Well so, hannah, if people want to reach out to you, if they want to learn more, if they want to get in touch, what's the best way?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I would say the best way to contact me is either via phone or text, and you can contact me at 404-947-7128. Once again, that's 404-947-7128. And that's my work phone, but we can text on that number as well. And then I'm also very available via LinkedIn. So if you search Hannah O'Donoghue, I should come up, or you could Hannah O and put in BKS. I'm likely to come up and I usually respond to anyone within 24 hours. But I'd love to help my neighbors and family and friends in the Dunwoody Sandy Springs area.
Speaker 2:Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for being on today. It's been an absolute pleasure getting to know you, and I know our audience will feel the same way. So it's been a pleasure, hannah, thank you Awesome. Thank you so much for having me. You're so welcome, thanks. Well, that's all for today's episode. At Lanta, I'm Stacey Risley with the Good Neighbor podcast. Thanks for listening and for supporting the local businesses and nonprofits of our great community.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to the Good Neighbor podcast North Atlanta. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, Go to GNPNorthAtlantacom. That's GNPNorthAtlantacom, or call 470-946-7007.
